30 weeks pregnant and alone....in Houston

Monday was a long day. We left the house at 515am to go to the airport. My flight to Houston was at 615am. I arrived at 715am, got my car and headed straight to class. Class was from 830am to 430pm. After classes I went to the hotel and checked in. Shockingly, I actually got a work out in after I unpacked. Then I went over to Chili's and got a salad for dinner. After I ate, I was so exhausted I could barely talk. I went straight to bed....one day/night down, 4 to go!

On Tuesday, I went to class again from 830am to 430pm, but my evening was a little more exciting. I did have to catch up on some work when I got back to the hotel. Even though I am in training, I still have deadlines back at work. Ashley came to see me for dinner! We met at a little Italian Restaurant by my hotel and it was delicious. Since Ashley lives down here, I don't get to see her as much as the other girls, so it was fun catching up with her. She is engaged to our friend from college, Thomas (one of Mikey's fraternity brothers), and they are planning to get married on May 30th of next year! Doesn't Ashley looked so pretty and so happy? Please excuse the hideous picture of me as I have written off makeup this week. I figure I won't see any of these people I am in training with ever again, and I am pregnant, so HAH. I will use that excuse as much as I can!

Wednesday wasn't too exciting. Training and then back to the hotel. I did get another work out in. Twice this week so far, I am doing a lot better than last week! I finally started one of the 3 books I brought with me. I figured I would be so bored in this hotel room, but I guess I have been spending my time in front of the tv and the computer. I got to watch Hard Knocks on HBO which I wouldn't have been able to do at home. We got the new Fiber Optics cable (please don't ask Mikey about this, it is a sore subject. He is not happy with the picture on our big 60 inch plasma tv.). Anyway, we didn't get HBO with this new cable, so watching Hard Knocks is a nice perk for being stuck in a hotel in Houston.

Thursday we actually got out of class early, so I went back to the hotel and started one of my books. Baby Proof by Emily Giffin, I absolutely love her. I have been looking forward to Thursday night for multiple reasons. First and most important, it is my last night, second I planned to order pizza from my room and watch the Cowboys. At about 10 after 7pm I started flipping channels and guess what? No Cowboys in Houston. I was so bummed, so I decided to indulge in my pizza and read for the rest of the night.

On Friday, I checked out of the hotel and headed to class. I left class around 2pm to catch my flight. I decided that I couldn't imagine being any more pregnant and traveling by myself. By the time I put gas in the car, returned it, took the shuttle, checked my luggage and went through security, I was exhausted. Not to mention the Houston humidity is awful. Once we boarded the plane and pulled away from the gate, they told us we were in a holding spot and were being re-routed due to storms near Dallas. So the 45 minute flight turned into about an hour and a half, but I made it home safely. Mikey picked me up and then made me dinner. I survived my week in Houston and I am so glad to be home and looking forward to the 3 day weekend!

Cedar Creek Lake

This last weekend, we went out to Cedar Creek Lake with 4 other couples from Mikey's work. We arrived Friday evening and the fun began. The guys went grocery shopping while the girls unpacked and got settled in. Once the boys were back from the grocery store, the games began. The guys started out by entertaining us with a couple games of Twister, and then everyone (excluding me) played quarters. We all had so much fun. Even though I was watching, I had a blast. We laughed so hard. After Quarters, we made pizzas for dinner and then the guys decided that they wanted to go for a midnight swim. We concluded the evening with a movie.

Saturday morning, Mikey had most everyone up bright and early by shooting off firecrackers. It worked on most people, but a couple of people slept in. Mikey made taquitos for breakfast and they were delicious. After breakfast, we hit the lake. Everyone took turns on the jetski's and spent most of the day laying in this fabulous raft. It was a very hot day, but being in the lake sure helped. The guys were in charge of lunch and they cooked out hamburgers, hot dogs, and bbq chicken. Everyone was stuffed and was ready for a nap. Once everyone was up and around, we made some snacks. Then someone got the bright idea to pull the big raft with the jet ski around the cove. Most everyone was game, so we headed back down to the lake. We figure this was either going to be a disaster or super fun. It ended up working out great and everyone enjoyed the cocktail cruise.

On Sunday we spent the morning cleaning up and packing. We headed back pretty early so that we could go see Mycah's new apartment. We went over for a late lunch and they were pretty much done with everything. It looked so good! Mycah moved into my old apartments which is only about 2 miles from us. We are so excited to have her so close and we are so proud of her! It is such a big step for her to move into her own apartment and be supporting herself with her job. I know that Kiley will love having her Aunt Mycah so close! You can see the super cute lamp next to her bed in the picture. That was part of her housewarming gift from us. We had a late lunch with Mom, Dad, Mycah and Cory (Hooter's, I wonder who picked that - Mikey?), and then headed home to get unpacked from the lake. Mikey had some chores to do around the house and I had to get ready for Houston which will be a blog in itself. Not looking forward to the trip by myself =(.

Ranger Game!

This weekend was pretty low key. Friday night we stayed in and watched a mixture of movies and the olympics. I cooked Mexican Food for dinner and it was delicious. On Saturday morning, I went for my walk. The weather was fantastic, a lot cooler than normal. It was overcast all day on Saturday. My wonderful husband helped me clean the house. It was well overdue. We got all 4 bathrooms clean, dusted everything and mopped the floors. Speaking of mopping, it felt like the hardest thing I have ever done. Apparently you use stomach muscles when you mop. I was absolutely exhausted by the time I was done. It probably didn't help that I walked 2.5 miles and scrubbed 4 bathrooms before. I couldn't do anything but lay in my chair with my feet up to recover. Mikey went and got lunch and we spent an hour or so watching TV while I recovered. Then we headed to Sam's to pick up some things for our tailgate party on Saturday Night.

Mikey coordinated a Ranger Game Outting for the Delta Chi Alumni association in Dallas. He has had this planned for quite some time and how he managed to pick the one night in the middle of the summer that was under 90 degrees is beyond me. The weather couldn't have been more perfect! We started the tailgate around 5pm. It was complete with KFC, beer, water and ladder golf. The game was a lot of fun too. It started to sprinkle towards the end, but I will take that over the heat anyday. Someone up above was definitely looking out for Mikey's pregnant wife! The night was a hit for everyone. Great job planning, honey!

On Sunday morning, Mom and Mycah came over to paint her furniture for her new apartment. Since I couldn't help, I supervised. Again, it was perfect painting weather. This 80 degree weather feels so great! Later in the afternoon, Shannon, Stacy and her sister Annette came over. Annette brought her new baby girl Audrey. She is so adorable! I got a little more practice in =). Stacey and Jason stopped by on their way home from the lake. Everyone left by about 5pm. Mikey and I had about an hour and a half together before I went to book club. This month's book was Marley & Me. It was very cute, I totally recommend it if you are a dog lover! Courtney cooked a fabulous dinner and then we watched the olympics for a little while before everyone left. Again, these olympics are keeping me way up past my bedtime!

Chillin with Dylan!!

On Thursday after work, my friend Christi came over with her son Dylan. He is 8 weeks old and getting so big! They had an outting at the Galleria (her first time shopping alone with him) before they came over. Dylan arrived hungry and needing a diaper change. I told her to bring it on, I need all of the exposure and practice I can get! After his diaper change and his feeding, he was a happy camper. I had so much fun holding him and spending time with him. He is such a good little boy and Christi is such a great Mom! I have so much to learn from her. She is full of advice and so motivating, giving us the confidence that we can do this! We still have no idea what we are getting into, but it is fun to talk about what is still to come. Mikey and I are filled with so many emotions right now, but each day that passes, we get more and more excited about meeting our Kiley Girl!

Here is another picture of Christi, Dylan and Buddy. Yes, Buddy. He could not get enough of Dylan. He wanted to be next to him the entire time. Smelling him and wondering what the heck was making those weird noises he had never heard. Buddy was so curious and that was an understatement. We are very curious to see how both Buddy and Boo will react to a new baby in the house. I think it is good for them to have some exposure before hand, at least the smell of a baby will get them a little familiar. Boo sniffed a couple of times, but was more interested in what was going on outside rather than inside. I think it will be a little bit of a different story once the baby is here for good and doesn't leave after a few hours.

After Christi and Dylan left, Mikey and I made dinner and watched a movie since the girls' gymnastics wasn't coming on until late. The olympics are so fun to watch, but they sure are keeping me up late. I didn't get in bed last night until almost 1230am!!

Finally, a short baby update. I finally posted my belly pics and I sure am bigger than my 25 week pictures! I went to the doctor today. I met with the other doctor in the office. Her name is Dr. Reyes. There is about a 25% chance that she could deliver Kiley depending on the timing. She seemed very nice. The checkup was just the normal weight, blood pressure, heart beat etc. Kiley's heartbeat was 156 bpm and sounded so strong! My next appointment is Tuesday, September 2nd.

Seven Months!!!

This weekend's blog entry is going to be a mixture of what we did this weekend and a baby update, since they kind of go hand in hand. So last Monday, August 4th, was my latest checkup. My dreaded diabetes test was scheduled for this appointment, so I had to drink the "orange stuff" right before I went in. I was really dreading it, but it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. I tasted like really sweet orange soda. Once I got in with the doctor, she checked all of the normal stuff. My weight and blood pressure were good. Kiley's heartbeat was 152 beats per minute and the doctor could feel that her head is down. She isn't ready to come yet, but she is starting to think about it. She weighs around 2lbs and is about 14 1/2 inches long. The books say if she came now, she could survive, but we'll keep her safe in my tummy for a while longer. After I met with the doctor, it was time for my blood test. If you don't remember what happened last time, you can go back and read or let's just say, I came out with 4 bandages. So needless to say, I wasn't looking forward to this part at all, but luckily it turned out not to be bad at all. My actual nurse did it right there in the office instead of going up to the lab. She got it on the first try! Thanks Sam! She said that there is a muscle blocking my one and only little tiny vein. I guess I should stop pumping all that iron =). Anyway, we had to wait a week for the test results, but they called yesterday and I do not have gestational diabetes, which is great news, but my doctor does want to put me on some iron supplements. My next appointment is Monday, August 18th. I am going every two weeks now. This is my last week of my wonderful 2nd trimester, crazy!!

Speaking of trimesters, as you have read, I have been feeling really great this whole trimester. I have been walking 4-5 times per week and doing yoga once a week and even getting some weight training in at least once a week. In saying that, just this weekend, I have started to feel the 3rd trimester coming on. My back has really been bothering me at night. It is getting harder to get comfortable and I can't figure out what I am doing to irritate my back, but I am in a lot of pain where it is keeping me awake. I don't feel like my belly has been getting a lot bigger, but I see it every day. My belly button is starting to poke out, as my sister says, "the turkey is almost done".

So I can't believe we are only 12 weeks (or less) away from becoming parents. That seems like such a short amount of time. I feel like we are almost doing something daily to prepare for our Kiley Girl. My shower invitations went out last week and I am super excited!! I think I mentioned in an earlier blog, we have gotten all of the furniture and bedding in for Kiley's room. Our parents are going to come over on Sunday, August 31st to help us paint and put all of the furniture together, so if all goes well, Kiley will have a room before the shower so that everyone can see it. I also made an appointment with a pediatrician for a prenatal consultation. He came recommended from the Armstrong's. His name is Dr. Nale. He is close to home and close to Mikey's work, so I am excited about meeting with him. We have a lot to do before the weekend of the 31st which brings us to this weekend.

So Friday, was a very productive evening. Mikey got a lot marked off of his to do list this weekend. On Friday, we had a guy come give us an estimate on solar screens for the front of our house. It faces the West and gets so hot in the afternoons. Since we will be using the play room a lot more, we figured this would be a good idea. We ordered solar screens for all of the windows on the front of the house and for the windows on the left side of the house. It also gets a lot of the West sun and will protect Kiley's room! We also had a guy come out and fix the big screen tv in the playroom. Both were quite expensive, but it felt good to get them marked off of the list. Instead of putting a rocker and TV in Kiley's room, we decided to utilize the room outside of her bedroom and make it the playroom. We also moved the computer from the black room (Kiley's room) to the play room. In that process, the modem broke, so we added a call to AT&T to the list. We must have spent two hours trying to figure out where the computer could go. I think we made the best decision with the options that we had. We spent the rest of Friday evening watching the Olympics Opening Ceremony and OH MY GOODNESS. It was amazing. We still have it tivoed for any of you people that missed out. It really got us excited about watching the games for the the next 17 days.

On Saturday morning, we woke up and started watching the Olympics. I went for a walk, and then to the grocery store to pick up a few things. We spent a little bit of time out by the pool. It sure was nice that it wasn't 110 outside. It was still hot, but not miserable. Then my ambitious husband was ready to mark something else off the list, so we headed to Lay Z Boy to look at rockers/recliners for the play room. We both decided that we wanted something pretty traditional, something that was super comfortable that we could feed and rock Kiley in, but not too grandmotherish. We loved the first one we sat in, but decided to go to a few more stores just to be sure. We ended coming back for that one. We picked out a neutral color to go in the playroom. We should get it in 4 to 6 weeks. Again, more money spent...this was turning into an expensive weekend. But as we drove home from making our purchase, we joked that in 18 years, we might be sending the chair with Kiley to college and that would be priceless. Saturday night Stacey and Jason came over. We spent some time in the pool, and then flipped back and forth between the Cowboy game and the Olympics. We are so excited that football is starting back up!!!

On Sunday morning, we slept in until 1030am, I couldn't believe it, but it felt good. We usually don't sleep past 830am. We had 30 minutes until Mass started, so we jumped up, got in the shower and then headed to church and got there just in time. We did make a note to ourselves that we won't be able to pull that off in 12 short weeks. I am sure that going anywhere will be quite a task until we get used to the parenting thing. After church we came home and Mikey cooked hamburgers out on the grill, they were delicious. Instead of laying by the pool, we opted to stay out of the heat and lay in the air conditioning and watch TV, so that's what we did. Shortly after we came inside, I noticed that Buddy was acting weird and went to check on him and he was having a seizure. This is the 3rd one since Thanksgiving. We both sat with him through it and then brought him up on the couch to be close to us. A few minutes later, another one came. I don't know what would have caused it. He didn't eat anything that we are aware of, and the fact that he had two really scared me. For those of you who didn't know, Buddy had a seizure on Thanksgiving and was diagnosed with some disease where his body can't process protein. We put him on a low protein diet and are careful not to let him eat any people food and he has been doing well. He slept for a while after the episodes and then was himself again last night and the next morning. My poor Buddy. He sure keeps us on our toes. This is just the beginning of parenthood....

Addie came to visit!

This weekend was another busy one, but very fun. Friday, Mikey took Carri to Lake Lewisville for the afternoon, so I made plans with Mom to finish up some baby stuff. We met at Babies R Us to finish up my registry. We had so much fun with all of the girly stuff, especially the clothes. We finished up the checklist, and we have quite a variety. I figure the more for people to choose from, the better. I was thinking to myself as we were registering that when you register when you get married, it is different. You already have plates and silverware and other things, but you register because you want new stuff for the two of you. On the other hand, when you are registering for a baby, you really have NOTHING. Which means, we need EVERYTHING on our registry!! Ok, maybe we don't need that many clothes, or some of the fun bibs or toys, but most everything is a necessity that we can't live without. After we finished registering, we went to Bed Bath and Beyond to pick up a few things for my sister and for Mikey. Boy are they lucky to have us =). We went to dinner at Houlihan's and then came home to look at the damage on the registry. I think we have most things covered! By the way, the furniture came in last week!!

On Saturday morning, we woke up and started getting the house ready for our pool day. Gretchen, Ben, Hilary, Trisha, Alan, Lisa, Bryan and ADDIE came over to swim. We cooked out on the grill and had a bunch of snacks. There were plenty of drinks to go around. The guest of honor, Ms. Addison Rich, graced us with her presence. She was all decked out, sunglasses and all. Quite adorable. She spent most of the day inside and in the shade, but she did come out and get her feet wet. It was soooo hot! I also got to get some practice changing her diaper. I think it has been 21 years since I have changed a diaper. It was like riding a bike for the most part, but it was neat that the diapers are now velcro and not sticky. She was such a good girl all day!

On Saturday night, we went to Glass Cactus to celebrate Brandon's birthday. They had a live band and it was great for people watching. It seems that people of all ages were there. I bet a lot of people come over from the hotel. It was a bit challenging finding a "going out" outfit, but I managed with what I had. We had a lot of fun. Happy Birthday Brandon!

Sunday morning, Mikey took Carri to the airport. We think she had a good time. She got plenty of sun, that's for sure. We took her to dinner at La Hacienda Ranch for mexican food, went to Mikey's parents for dinner one night, went to Mikey's softball game, and then to the lake on Friday. She had a busy, but relaxing week. We spent the rest of the day on the couch. It was way to hot for anyone to be outside, much less a pregnant woman. We went to Jake's for a late lunch and watched a couple of movies. It was nice to have a lazy day to catch up on our rest before another week of work.

10 Year Reunion!!

Friday after work, I went downtown to get my hair done by my very own sister, Mycah Lillian. She cut and styled my hair for my big night. Everything went great until I came out to my car and realized that I got a parking ticket! Apparently you can't park at the meter after 4pm on weekdays. I guess I learned my lesson, but I was bummed. My haircut turned out to be pretty expensive. Jae and John came over to our house and we all rode to the reunion together.

We had events scheduled all weekend, but I opted to just attend on Friday night. We rented a banquet room at Pappadeaux on Oak Lawn. It was a good central location. There were some appetizers, a cash bar, and a DJ. Rowland Parish was our DJ. He is a fellow classmate and is the DJ for the Dallas Mavericks. He has also done soem work with the Dallas Cowboys. He has done a lot of great things with his talent. He played great music all night.With it being the Friday night event, and not the main event of the weekend, I think we had a pretty good turnout. I would say that we had about 100 out of 400 graduates and their dates show up. It was so much fun seeing old faces and catching up with everyone. It was hard to believe that I hadn't seen some people in 10 years. It seems like such a long time. Most everyone looked the same. By the end of the night, everyone's stories seemed to run together and I wasn't even drinking! But for the most part, everyone seemed to be doing great. I was a little bigger than when I graduated. I was one of three baby bumps at the reunion. The people watching definitely got interesting as the night went on. Everyone seemed to have a great time. We closed down the party, and didn't get home until after 1am! It was way past my bedtime and I was exhausted.

Saturday morning, I woke up exhausted. I did a few things around the house and then laid by the pool while Mikey caught up on his yard work from being out of town the weekend before. He introduced me to Potbelly for lunch and it was delicious. After lunch, we stayed in and watched a movie. It is way too hot to be outside in the afternoon. I was still so tired, I took a nap during the movie. We went to Mass at St. Ann's on Saturday evening. It is so much fun to go back there and reminisce about our wedding. I love that church. After church, we went to Mikey's parents old neighborhood for a party. Jason (who remodeled our house) had done some work for some of Mikey parent's old neighbors and they had a party to show it off. It all looked great! We left shortly after dinner. I was still so exhausted. We were in bed by 10pm!

On Sunday morning, we went to the boat show with Mikey's parents. The marina by their neighborhood on Lake Lewisville opens on March 1st and they need to reserve a slip now. So we went to go look at boats to get an idea of what they like and to get measurements for the slip. It will be a boat for the family, so we made sure that it will have a canopy for Kiley =). After the boat show, we went to lunch. Mikey's parents said that they would like to buy Kiley's furniture for her room. We are so grateful and so excited. I'll tell you what, she is going to be one spoiled grandchild between her two sets of grandparents. We are very lucky. After lunch we came home and got the house ready for our guest. Mikey's friend Carri flew in from Canada last night. She is staying with us until Sunday. We warned her over and over about this heat, but she said she is ready. It is supposed to be in the triple digits the whole time she is here! I think she will spend a lot of time in the pool!